Newbie question about installing software

Hi, welcome in GNU/Linux world generally, and in Debian in particular (good choice ;-) ).

You need to loose some windows reflex with Debian, 99% of the time you don't need to download any program, they are already available one clic away in the package manager.
Look for the application named "Synaptic".

Better than a thousand words, go have a look at How-to forge : The perfect Desktop "Debian Etch", you'll learn all the basics and far beyond.

Have a nice trip with Debian airlines !

Hello
I'm new to Debian (since last week) but I had used Mandriva for some years before.

It seems that with Debian, you can install a lot of .deb files through Synaptic Package Manager and files that will install will be .deb files at the point of installation.

Tonight I installed Flash-plugin through Synaptic Package Manager and it didn't work, so I had to install through a process of trial and error a .rpm Adobe flash file downloaded from the Adobe webpage. I created a folder called Downloads and copied and pasted my downloaded Adobe flash file into this Downloads file.

To install a .rpm file, open the root terminal in Applications/Accessories/root terminal and type:

apt-get update (press Enter)

after 1 or 2 minutes your seach facilities will have been updated, type:

apt-get install alien (press Enter)

this command will install the program Alien which converts .rpm files to .deb files, next you change directory to where your .rpm is, using cd:

cd /home/kureyamu/Downloads/ (press Enter)

now we are in the correct directory, we can convert the .rpm file to a .deb file, type:

alien -k filename (in this case filename = flash-plugin-9.0.124.0-release.i386.rpm) (press Enter)

after 1 or 2 minutes the file and its name are converted to a .deb file and we can install the deb file, type:

dpkg -i filename (in this case filename = flash-plugin_9.0.124.0-release-1_i386.deb) (press Enter)

the file will be installed, but we have to copy and make links in the system, type:

cp -R /usr/lib/flash-plugin/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/epiphany/2.14/plugins/ (press Enter)

ln -s /usr/lib/flash-plugin/libflashplayer.so /usr/bin/libflashplayer.so (press Enter)

Reboot your system and watch flash videos on Youtube.

That's an example of installing a .rpm file on debian with alien.

Concerning installing mozilla firefox, i don't know and haven't had much time to check it out ... anyway, i'm a newbie too :-D ... but is seems that you go to Desktop/Administration/Synaptic Packet Manager and there you can search for and select mozilla-firefox 2.0.0.14 ... select this file and click on Apply and then Install, and then reboot your system after installation. Mozilla 2.0.0.14 is probably better than Mozilla 3 , which is beta and still buggy.

Best wishes
kureyamu

PS this comments page has a bug, when i preview it does not appear to allow correct spaces, so in the code above read:

cp -R /usr/lib/flash-plugin/libflashplayer.so (leave a space here) /usr/lib/epiphany/2.14/plugins/ (press Enter)

ln -s /usr/lib/flash-plugin/libflashplayer.so (leave a space here) /usr/bin/libflashplayer.so (press Enter)

You control the list of available software via the file /etc/apt/sources.list
That is a list of servers/files/CDs to search for software lists (Packages.gz or Packages.bz2). The lists maintained on your computer are updated when you do:
apt-get update

To search for some type of software:
apt-cache search mozilla
apt-cache search browser
apt-cache search grub

If you have installed the tool 'less':
apt-cache search browser|less

Then to install:
apt-get install iceweasel (or whatever the package name was)

For a complex piece of software like Firefox, which depends on numerous other bits of software, I would only recommend that you install via Debian's package manager (dpkg/apt-get, with friendlier tools like aptitude and synaptic). For software which is not already available as a *.deb package, the best way to install is to install the tools to build it, and build manually rather than relying on some other non-*.deb package. Unfortunately this sort of thing requires quite a bit of expertise. On the bright side, with over 16000 *.deb packages, it really is pretty rare that you need to build anything complex.

Usually there is a free alternative to proprietary software. For example, rather than use 'AcroRead32', you can use ghostscript + ghostview (gs and gv) or 'evince'. A lot of proprietary software does not install in a friendly manner; the people who do the packaging often appear to be clueless hacks and the install scripts copy files all over the place. To keep your system nice and neat, try to stick to the *.deb packages.